Writing for The River, Brian K. Mahoney reviews a new book by former EPA official Judith Enck entitled The Problem with Plastic: How We Can Save Ourselves and the Planet Before It’s Too Late. Enck makes the case that plastic pollution isn’t just a matter of personal responsibility. We haven’t all failed to recycle, reuse, and reduce. This narrative, she writes, has been developed to allow the plastics industry—fossil fuel and chemical—to perpetrate environmental injustice.
In fact, recycling “was never the answer.”
Enck identifies enumerates the numbers behind the Problem with Plastic:
- Nearly 50% of all plastic ever produced has been made since 2007, underscoring how recent—and rapidly accelerating—the plastic crisis is.
- The average American uses almost 500 pounds of plastic per year, much of it invisible in packaging, textiles, and household goods.
- Less than 6% of plastic waste in the US is recycled, despite decades of public messaging suggesting otherwise.
- Plastics contain thousands of chemical additives, many of them toxic and largely unregulated.
- Microplastics have been found in human blood, breast milk, placentas, lungs, and feces, raising urgent questions about long-term health impacts.
- Plastic production is responsible for roughly one-sixth of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions, tying plastic directly to climate change.
- US plastic production emissions are on track to exceed those from coal-fired power plants, even as coal declines.
- Trillions of pieces of plastic pollute the world’s oceans, most of them microplastics that cannot be recovered.
- Plastic does not biodegrade—it breaks into smaller fragments, continuing to pollute ecosystems and release greenhouse gases.
- Landfills, incinerators, and petrochemical facilities are disproportionately located in low-income communities and communities of color, making plastic pollution an environmental justice issue.
Read the full article and more about Judith Enck’s book.